The Winter Nymeria
by Odeveca
Summary: Left to die as babe, saved by a Wildling Woman. She becomes Claimed By Fire. The Red God's Child. Aeriona. Winter Nymeria. Despite having more faces than a Faceless Man, she must become more than just a player. She must play her part in the Battle for the Dawn. Though it's a pity she won't live to see it. Power is a fickle thing. OC/Rhaegar. DISCONTINUED.
1. Book 1: The Winter Nymeria

**300 AC**

* * *

 **o0o**

 **The Winter Nymeria**

 **by Odeveca**

* * *

The winter dream is always the same, but she must escape it.

Even if she can't.

For many years, she had a flaming will to survive the lands South of the Wall, and now it is burning with frozen fire as she returns to the place where it all began.

The woman's heart felt like a raging beast as she pushed her legs to move through the knee-high snow. She could feel it moving inside her, and getting ready to burst out of her breast as she picked up the pace, using her burning thighs to push through the thick evil water. She is running now. Running till everything around her was a white blur. If she would run any faster her soles would melt to ice sludge.

"I am fucking freezing," she mutters violently.

The woman races up an immaculately white hill near the southern side of the Wall and she feels the last of her strength leave her as she spots her destination in the distance.

The dream is always the same. She is in a blizzard of ice and snow, her fingers and toes are ready to fall off, but she doesn't stop running. She doesn't stop running until she sees the Wall of ice that she must get to. The determined woman keeps on running now that she has a destination. The mountain of ice expands for miles and miles left to right, but the panting woman doesn't have time to stand in awe. She has no time at all.

All the woman knows is she must get there fast because something horrible is about to happen.

She blows fire into her palms, this weakens her, and the worst part is that her flames come out as wispy skinny things. Just pathetic.

Winter winds bash both of her sides tossing her around like a frozen rag. A dreadful drumming is her heart, and it marches her forward. It leads her somewhere she hopes she won't regret. Her lethargic legs plow against the knee deep snow. Her eyes get dizzy with the exertion.

She tells herself, _I can't stop running, and even if I don't know why, I can't stop running, I can't stop running, I won't stop running._

She slips and falls face forward into the snowy ground.

 _Why did she always have to fall?_

She looks down at her furred arms and sees red spreading through the white fur. She must have scraped her arms and hands against the boulder, and drawn blood. A dangerous thing in the snow.

In frustration she watches her hands shake and the angry frostbite blisters give small explosions of volcano red liquid to gush in between her fingers. She clenches them tight, but doesn't stop in her war march. The blizzard picks up and now she can see nothing in this white other-world. Everywhere there is falling snow, only a trail of her blood sits stark against the purity of the evil water.

She shivers in fear imagining the cold swallowing her whole.

She must not believe her imagination.

The air howls around her, she hears heavy snow falling, but not just heavy snow, but the rumbling of a great _avalanche of ice_ -and then the ominous blowing of what could be a horn. _The Horn of Winter..._

The woman quakes in fear. They are done for now.

She is in the belly of the beast, and the low bellows of the magical horn is the herald of eternal bloody Winter. That is when the very earth shakes, ear-splitting cracking fills the air, and Minisa knows the Great Wall isn't weeping, it is falling, down, down, down, into nothing but rubble of a once mighty shield against the North. The one true protector, guarding the Realms of Men against the Night King... _oh no_.

Minisa starts sprinting in the opposite direction. She wasn't going to find out what was coming over the Wall.

Her world was already fucked bloody if the Mountain had fallen, and she wasn't going to go down with it.

She resumes her sprinting in the opposite direction, until she spots a figure coming closer in the blizzard.

"Hey!"

All reason leaves her as she sprints to the person, "You're going the wrong way!"

But the person keeps disappearing in the blizzard. She catches her breath and breathes in snow which brings on a fit of coughing. Maybe this person was lost as well. Maybe a Crow from the Wall, a free-folk scavenger, any person would be good right now. Gasping into her furred arm, she strains her eyes to look up again.

It is a man, but her rational mind tells her, this far close to the Wall, it can be something far worse.

"Oh no."

He is running to her now. The man is a knight or at least a soldier of sorts. The clinking of the blackened metal can be heard in the backdrop of the blowing horn, he has no helmet, and his head is open to the elements. So unnatural for there to be soldiers this far North.

The black armor of the man shines like flowing obsidian, and the woman stares enraptured by it like a moth to the flame. As he comes closer and closer the woman's heart constricts, because she recognizes the man.

The soldier has a full head of white blonde hair, a handsome face, clean shaven, and she knows he is the bearer of the most haunting purple eyes known to man. Eyes that she had woken up mornings to, that made her feel more than just a frozen peasant, and the eyes that would warm even the coldest of blizzards. It was silly how much she loved his warm purple eyes.

The silly memory he could burn her with one satisfying look gave the woman the energy to reach him.

 _I would gladly burn from his gaze, and get some reprieve in this frozen wasteland,_ she thought. Her body shivers.

She is stops in her tracks.

When he close enough, he lifts his face from the downpour of snow, his eyes are no longer a familiar purple.

"Oh Gods, No!" _  
_

 _They are not alive,_ and she let out a scream of fear, "NO! This cannot be!"

His once warm gaze, _has...changed to bright_ _blue_ , bright icy blue from another world. That came from an old primordial fear. Dead, cold, and the color of a frozen death.

"Minisa," he gives a throaty mutter. The woman is terrified. She is frozen in fear, unable to answer him. A lamb quaking in the presence of a wolf. It is too late. The Night King have already began taking souls of the living… their world is doomed.

He trudges toward her.

"Stay away from me," Minisa squeaks like a small child.

His re-animated dead corpse, better known as a Wight, reaches out blindly, a foreigner in her husband's body, "stop, don't touch me," she falls backwards, and crawls on her back looking up at a man that she no longer feels safe with. "Don't get near me."

"Minisa," he repeats her name, no life left in him, but the Night King's will to kill all that is not snow and ice. It will snuff her fire out.

Tears come to Minisa's eyes and they freeze on her cheeks as he rises once more, his bones cracking as he flops up. _I failed._ She gets on her own two feet before he can reach her. _I failed him._

"I'm warning you," fire erupts from her hand and she brings it over her head in warning. This usually scares others out of their skin, it had scared him once. "Do not dare get any closer, or I will be forced to crisp you," she wants him to leave. She... _doesn't want to burn him._

But it doesn't work. He doesn't say a word as he lumbers forward. All sense of self-preservation and humanity is long gone. Along his brows there is a curtain of icicles, his chest is cracked in, and his insides are just as black as his armor. It seems the cold has no effect on him. _He hated the cold_ , and the woman is sobbing now, "You wouldn't hurt me," but Minisa feels as if she is trying to assure herself, "please don't hurt me."

She was losing all her fighting strength, "Please, just go away."

"Minnisssa," he says only a few steps away.

She extinguishes the fire, her shoulders slumping in defeat.

Without so much as a warning, both of his fists encircle her neck, and... _and..._ Minisa can't breathe.

The black metal of his armored wrists bites and rips into her neck, and she screams loudly, and he squeezes harder. She can't breathe. She can't breathe. She can't breathe. It is impossible to breath from the clamping pressure of his fleshy cold palms, and fingers on the front and back of her windpipe. It is heightened at the surprise of him ever laying hands on her. He was not this man. He would never hurt her. Maybe there was nothing of him left.

"St-o-p!" Minisa can't even say the word, and she bashes against his hands trying to burn them off.

The suffocating woman leaves the ground entirely. The Wight of her husband extends her over his head, bringing her closer to death. His impressive strength only increasing as hers leaves her. Minisa's furry body and legs flap crazily like a dying fish, and all the while her vision darkens.

She doesn't have much time. Minisa tries to reach him. Her pleading eyes call out to him, but he constricts even tighter choking her with his cold hands, and burning blue eyes.

The world has gone quiet, but not peaceful, not when there is still fight within her. He doesn't say anything while she gives soundless screams to make him stop. How could he do this? This was not him. They might as well be strangers with the indifference he gives to her pleading eyes.

"Do-nt- Rh-gar!" He doesn't even recognize his own name anymore.

As she dangles there, losing oxygen and consciousness she can't help but remember him.

A man finally worthy of sitting on the Iron Throne, and then feeling the absence as he gave it all up in the name of something she found idiotic at the time...but his sincerity to those below him, patience for a partially mad-father, strength for a fading Mother, and tremendous love for his people.

Oh Rhaegar, my gentle dragon, even the cold has a way to make the gentlest souls into frozen beast. A beast shackled to the North. The North does not feel, does not love, and will burn you with frozen fire. It burned Minisa, and she was fire itself.

Minisa should have the power to fight this off. She cannot give up fighting against the Ice Kings, not when she is so close to saving the souls of millions. Instead her vision blackens, and she no longer feel Rhaegar's hands.

Then

She wakes up.

"Mini?"


	2. Wildling

**MINISA I**

She is a Wildling.

It is not her name, but before names are necessary, that fact is far more important than what others would call her.

Minisa is a child of the North, the true North, and that comes with many responsibilities and burdens.

Responsibilities were summed to the ultimate truth; survival.

Survival was the only job she had, and she took it very seriously. Minisa had accepted she would be a stepping stone for men to use for cooking, cleaning, fucking, and shoving around when it came to mealtimes. Woman had to accept these truths, even free-folk woman. _It's not pretty thought_ , _but life is not a game of who is prettiest, it is about surviving,_ thought Minisa.

In the North, you _take what you get, and get what you can_.

It is a man eats man, animal, or even their own excrement type of world. Men did queer things when they are starving, and woman would have to do it too if they want to survive for the following year. In Minisa's gut she wanted there to be more options, more food, and woman to be equal to men, but even in the free society of the icy tundra, they were unequal.

Men survived more than the ratio of women, children, and the elderly combined.

Though, these things hardly matter when both men and women could freeze from the cold. They freeze if they think themselves strong enough to brave the cold. To stand in the ice until their blood turns sluggish and frozen, and their toes, fingers, and lips turn blue and fall off. Those types did not live long in the North.

Then there are those that were naturally curious. Some made the wrong decision of wandering too far away from camp. By wandering too far you got lost in places you couldn't see, with the help of continuous blizzards that created a snow wall of ice a few licks from your nose. Places so deserted that a White Walker could take a bite out of their ass, and no one would be the wiser. There is no room among Wildlings for the feeble, brainless, and curious.

In Minisa's Cavepeople clan they did not do such stupid things, they hardly had enough of them for bravery.

During the winters, the temperature of the Frostfangs plummeted so low even Big Sam would not let them stay. Big Sam is their Clan leader, and has been for as long as she can remember.

Though the Frostfangs are their home, they head down the northern ridge, and descend the Giant's Stairs and join with the Rockfist Clan in the valley. _We are the free folk, we are the True Northerners,_ Minisa thought, _we make our yearly pilgrimage to the valley where two Weirwood trees watch over the eastern valley below the Frostfangs, nestled between the Skirling Pass and the Giant's Stairs._

In the valley, the Sister Weirwood Trees are a sight to behold.

They swivel around each other twisting their bodies until they become one, white fleshy bark against white fleshy bark, and when you look up into their branches it's a puzzle to tell from which tree they belong to. Their mouths are shut tight as well as their eyes. As if they are fighting to hide themselves from the brutal coldness and broken men that littered the frozen wasteland. Weirwood trees are sacred here in the land as far as North gets. It is a bad omen to harm them. This valley below the two weirwood trees belongs to the Rockfist Clan, and it is here that Big Sam's clan _must_ make landfall.

Minisa sourly thought, _we don't have a choice. It's either this or freezing to death. In the warmer valley, we stay the whole winter, but the Rockfist clan leader is not one of the reasons we trek down the mountain into the valley._

The Rockfist leader, the Weeper; who weeps when he is fighting, eating, taking a shit, and harassing her older cousin, is one rough son of a bitch. That is what Minisa's older brother calls him. A _rough son of a bitch_ with a _goat's beard_ to go with it. Don't ever let his tears fool you, he doesn't give a hoot about anybody.

Glori Thunderfist from Minisa's clan made fun of his tears during meal hour, and had his tongue ripped out. Apparently, the Weeper has sensitive eyes, but is not sensitive enough to give two shits about our freezing asses. He kicks us out, and steals our woman so Minisa's clan takes the treacherous climb up during the summer so their own is protected from the Weeper's sensitive side.

Minisa loves the winters. She knows it sounds crazy, but she does.

Sure, it is freezing, _but when is it not?_

The Cavepeople girl loves the winter time because she can put up her flimsy tent in the middle of a larger Rockfist village. So many people to swallow her with voices, tight pressed bodies, and warm energy. By living here, it creates a greater sense of community in Big Sam's Cavepeople clan. Not to mention more children there are to play with.

There are so many, so many children, it makes Minisa's toes wiggle with excitement. Some toddling after siblings and others are racing through the skinned tented campsite, some that are handsome, others that are not, and her favorite are the ones that are up for some mischief. They are all a horde of disaster throwing rocks, gathering sticks, and having spitting contest. It's so much fun watching spit turn into ice, it's like they are frost wizards and they can turn water into ice in a matter of minutes.

 _You don't see much children in the Frostfangs,_ Minisa thought while the morn cold woke her.

Most children die before they reach their first name day. In these unforgiving mountains, a babe's first winter is the hardest to make it through. It is a bad omen to name your child before it reaches its first name day. That is why you give it a milk name in the meantime. _Once you can hold your own, and fend for yourself your mother names you or if you are willing, you name yourself,_ she had once told a Thenn girl that had never heard this before.

The Thenn girl asked before she left, "What was your milk name?"

"I don't know," said Minisa, she never knew hers. Both girls had to separate because a blizzard was rumbling in the sky and would descend on them soon. They would never meet again.

Even now, years later, the cold enters through all the crevices of the skinned tent walls. It's creeping cold claws tearing a way to get through. Minisa burrows into her mother's chest hiding her face where it is the warmest. She has no other choice, but to stay warm despite how difficult it is sometimes.

That is what snuggling up is for, butt-cheeks to butt-cheeks, crotch to backside, and arms wrapped around another until space is nonexistent. There is no shyness in the north, and there is no privacy. Minisa bathes in front of another family from the Rockfist Clan, boys her age sometimes stare at her from behind their mothers.

Her family shares a skinned tent and in extension a life together with another family. _Our business is their business and I could care less. I am not worried about them. I am far more concerned with freezing from taking a bath,_ Minisa thought. More people have died taking baths during the winter, than they have from starvation. You must do it two hours after the sun has risen, or you risk the water freezing as it meets your bare skin.

Minisa does a little warm dance, "it is cold, Mama! Aahhh!"

Her Mother yawns as she dries, "Quickly, quickly!" She helps her rub her skinny body, "Quickly, quickly little one," and pours more on Minisa's head, making her scream, and giggle while she keeps doing the warm dance she was taught.

"You were getting stinky," says the Mother as she threads her hands through her daughter's hair. Minisa sighs, _if I was not bare to the world, and was shivering from toe to head, it would feel wonderful._ She leans into her touch rubbing her arms, and raising her knees up one after the other. She was running in one space, but it does doing nothing for the cold. Minisa's fingers were already frozen, and she breathes into them wishing for warmth.

The Mother's bigger warmer hands encase the little girl's, and exhaled deeply releasing hot breathe into her small frozen fingers. Minisa watches her mother's scarred lips give a little kiss there, before she wrapped her up in her arms and lifted her out of the tub into some animal skins. The cold made you very tired, and standing in a pool of frozen water was the worst.

Her Mother pours icy water on her back and Minisa can feel her frostbite skin blister angrily. Baths only take at the most a minute to two. Any more you are risking a cold, or turning into an icicle.

"Lady, southern lady," a Rockfist girl is tugging on mama's dress.

"Yes," Mother patiently smiles at the girl that called her a southerner.

"She cold?"

"Very cold, I got her." The Wildling Mother warms Minisa placing warm kisses over her shoulders, and rubbing her so hard the fur scrapes her flesh. It feels so good, that that is why she never complains about the pain.

"Was Stinky her milk name?" asks a girl from the Rockfist clan. The Rockfist girl fumbles around the Mother. Helping them by grabbing clothes so they both can put them back on the bathing child, "that would have been a funny milk-name," the girl laughs to herself. _I don't find it funny,_ Minisa scowled.

"No," Mother grabs more of our sleeping skins and wipes her off completely, "no, she did not have a baby name."

"But everyone has a milk name," Minisa notices the Rockfist girl is younger than seven summers old. She is tall for her age so she must have mistaken her for being the same age.

"My baby is special," she finishes buttoning up her skin clothes, and then wraps her shivering body with more skins. Her tone is loving, "and special babies do not have baby names. She is Minisa from the day she was born and that is that."

Minisa pulls away from the kisses she planted on her cheeks, even sweet kisses are hurting her. Frostbite, is no joke.

"That is unheard of," the girl stares at Minisa as if she is cursed, "it is a bad omen to name the babe before the first year."

Mother swaddles her daughter in more skins that did not belong to them, "Not everywhere it isn't. In some places the naming ceremony is as huge as weddings, and funerals. They look at the lineage of ages back to name children," her mother has a calming voice, it made Minisa sleepy, "and name their babies after mighty war heroes, saintly men, and even in some cases names chosen from the Old Gods."

"But then they are all cursed, oh no that's horrible!"

Mother laughs, but the girl keeps going, "Do all of their babies die from the cold then?"

"No, it is far hotter in the South," the two Wildlings lay on their skinned and furry floor bed rubbing each other, and the Rockfist girl joined them. "And many more down South survive past their first name days. I once knew a man that was sixty years of age, and he looked as good as the men here that are in their forties. "

She gasped, "Sixty?" Minisa chuckled at the other little girl's expression.

"Yes, the nobility and royalty can live for a long time if they treat their bodies with care. They eat well enough; it is just not eating too much. They at times have to watch how much they eat or else they would all be with bulging stomachs filled with food," my stomach rumbled at the mention of food, "you should see the layers of fat that both men and women acquire it is positively ridiculous to become so big, but they do, and they suffer for it." I couldn't imagine what was wrong with eating too much food; if I was there, you could not tell me when to stop. I would have gobbled it all up in all ten bites.

Minisa's stomach rumbled again.

Mother heard it, "I am sure your brothers will be back with some meat Minisa," but her grimace told her otherwise. They were always the last to get their pick. They were only six and the elder was a skinny fourteen summers old boy. Her brothers usually got the scraps to bring back to them, or the skins of the scraps. But skins were still food, everything was used. Even the marrow of the bones could be sucked out, if you were hungry enough.

Thievery wasn't a foreign practice. They could get scraps or sneak into another tent to freeload on stolen animal meat. It was getting caught what got you killed. No one appreciated thievery, especially when everyone was starving and raving mad when it came to food.

"What do they eat down South?" The other girl asked, and her stomach rumbled again. Minisa wanted to know too, but not when she was so hungry. She had not eaten since yesterday morning, and her throat felt parched because she only had a few sips from the boiling water made last night. The fire went out earlier than usual, and that was used for boiling the water. Mother did not have enough sticks to start another for us, and the Rockfist girl's father did not want to make another for their family. That meant they would go thirsty until today.

Minisa's mouth salivated at the mention of water, and food…

Mother licked her chapped lips rubbing her daughter's belly when she heard her tummy rumble, "well there is figs, fruits, nuts, and the berries are delicious," the Southern woman's eyes closed and Minisa missed seeing her Mother's green eyes, they got all dreamy when she talked of her old homeland across the Wall. "There are fields and fields of wheat and stalks of grapes as far as the eye can see. Your hands would turn purple," she lifted her hand in the air, "and when you licked them they tasted of sweet wine." Her hands were pale white, but Minisa could imagine them darkened purple like the bruises Baryon and Bane had after roughhousing each other.

Baryon and Bane were her brothers she explained before, the ones that were still supposed to becoming back with food. _Food._

Her mother continued. "Before the picking began you could ride your horse through the stalks. There is enough space in between the vineyards that two horses can run side-along, and they would hold races to see who would take the horn of feasts at the end of the games. Woman would dance in the wine crates to squish the grapes to juice. I can still remember the music and... the clapping. Highgarden was where we vacationed for the summer," her stories sounded like dreams.

 _I had never heard this_ , "Horn of Feast? What is Hargarden?" Minisa's voice sounded small, and she grimaced at how weak she was beginning to sound.

Mother rubbed her even harder, "Highgarden, little one, it is called Highgarden. The Horn of Feast is filled with golden coins, and would be filled with grapes, and fruits of all sorts."

The Rockfist girl's eyebrows rose, "What are fruits?"

Mother wiped something from under her eye, "they are sweet, and soft…" she thought for a moment, and Minisa didn't blame her. Things like sweet and soft did not exist in the North, it would be hard to make the comparison when all we had known was the North. I felt sleepy so I closed my eyes trying to fall asleep to her telling stories.

She began comparing it to what we knew. "You know about the apples that we get from the Fists of the First Men," even in sleep, Minisa's mouth watered at the thought of apples. It had been ages since she had one. She had a piece five months ago, but the taste was just enough to taunt her until she had another inside her mouth to gobble up.

"Well they are like that, though fleshier. They can be sweet and sour, and they burst in your mouth," the girl moaned at the description, "let's see, there are grapes and they are small little purple ball shaped ones that are both sweet and sour. They were my favorite. There was ummm… bananas, figs, and oranges, they smelled nice, and you could peel off the skin, and the inside would squirt with sweetness, they had a tangy taste, it reminded me of home." There was warmth in her mother's voice, and it made all the thoughts of hunger and freezing be vanquished by her stories of warmth and sweet fruits in vineyards, the ones she had no idea looked like, but Minisa wished she did.

The Rockfist girl squealed with excitement, "I want to go to the South. I want to ride in the vineyards, and eat fruits," the girl whined, "life is so unfair."

 _"What of the South?"_

Mother leaned up, but Minisa's eyes were already sealed shut. She was in the space between sleep and awareness.

"Daddy, I want to go to the south!"

"That is out of the question, go join your brothers." I felt the girl leave my side, and the sound of the tent opened and then closed. A Mother, her daughter, and the Man of the tent remained. The Rockfist girl's siblings and mother had left earlier that morning.

Mother leaned back down to her daughter. "She was curious," she whispered against my cheek.

The man that was not Minisa's father said. "Do not put foolish thoughts into my child's mind," he sounded pissed, "you do what you want by your own, and I will do the same with mine. Is that understood?"

"It was just a story." She wiped away a strand of Minisa's hair, "it meant no harm by it."

Suddenly her warmth was taken, and Minisa grimaced in her sleep.

"Where is my payment, woman?"

Mother told him to be quiet since her daughter was sleeping, and this only angered him further.

He growled. "You told me two days? It has been two days, and I deserve my payment. If I am feeding and protecting your brats as well as you I deserve some _compensation_."

She struggled against him, and Minisa tried to fight to get back to consciousness, but she was so tired. Her head felt light, and she shivered into her covers.

Mother sounded panicked, "Now, stop this. Stop this right now." She struggled even more, "Let me just"—

"I know what you are, and this should not be so hard for you," his words were muffled.

"Watch your tongue!"

"Stop this." Her voice was pleading, "Are you truly the wildling that people claim you to be? My Banred didn't think so, and I agree with my husband. You are a good man, and we are all hurting here. If we can stake this together then we can do something better before our true enemies are those right in front of our eyes."

"Don't bring Banred into this," was his reply, "I knew him far longer than you ever did. Back when the true enemy was behind the wall, rather than on our side. You call me your enemy now, let's see what enemies do," there were sucking noises and then a slap.

Mother threatened, "How dare you! I will scream!"

The wildling man said. "You will not scream." and Mother whimpered again. "If you want to keep living in here, eating my food, and sleeping in my space, you won't."

"Then we are leaving!"

"I doubt that."

His voice was hard, "No, you will not," Mother inhaled, "if you don't do as I say then you are going to have one less child to worry over."

"Wait."

There was the rustle of clothes, "you will not deny me this time."

"Wait," he stopped at my mother's pleading. "I was not saying no," Mother said. I didn't understand what was happening, but it sounded like my mother was going to pay for the man to keep us here in his tent longer.

Minisa wanted her to do it, so he could leave them all alone. All this thinking was giving her a headache.

They stopped struggling, "allow me to wake her."

Someone pushed against her shoulder, "Minisa wake up."

She couldn't open her eyes.

"Minisa," Mother shook it again, but she couldn't open them. The sleeping Minisa grew scared. _What if she could never open them again? What if they were frozen shut?_

"Minisa?"

"Minisa. Mini, my child you must awaken," she grabbed both of her daughter's shoulders shaking her, but Minisa's head lolled to the side showing no sign of awareness.

The Mother became frantic, "mini? Mini. MINISA!"

 _Mommy I want to wake up but I can't, why was I so weak. Why couldn't we be stronger and get some more water from another tent, and take what we wanted instead of living off others. Why? Why was I so hungry?_ thought Minisa.

"MINI WAKE UP!" **_I can't_** **,** Minisa wanted to yell, but alas the body was unwilling, and would not respond no matter how hard she tried.

She was dying, or dead.

Both. Minisa decided. _It's both._


	3. Reborn

**MINISA II**

 _"What is going on in here,"_ more voices entered the small tent, and she felt tug of war with her consciousness wavering.

Mother's voice was was urgent and loud in her ears, "Help me!" she urged anyone, "She needs to wake up."

"She can't if she's already dead-"

"Shut it, can't you see she's grieving-"

"The Big Tent," said the recognizable voice of Big Sam, their chieftain, who snapped for others to move, "she needs the Healing Witch. Maybe she can help you, come, there isn't much time-"

"You're right. Take her please, take her." Minisa was lifted from the bed, and then her vision began turning a flickering white.

 _"Minisa, he needs you." says a bald rotund man that leans towards her, his perfumes tickle her nose."Come the King will not tolerate disobedience," says the strange man too fat for the North, his bald head gleaming with sweat, and his pudgy hand reach down towards her._

In the corner of her eyes there were flecks of reality when she would see her Mother's face, white as yak's milk, hair brown like the soft brown earth, and her eyes... she had never seen them so frightened.

 _"My witch," says a yellow-curled finger that flicks in front of her vision. "Rise Aeriona, and be reborn."_

Aeriona? Why had he called her that, worse, why had he called her a witch?

 _"They are going to eat you alive." A man sitting before a harp, hair as pale as snow, skin more-so. A great black and red dragon upon his breast. "You have made very powerful enemies Mini." His frown seemed to upset her, she could feel her fingers curling around the blade in her hand. "Very powerful enemies," his purple eyes marked her in resolution._

It echoed within her, that perhaps she should feel the same fear that swayed in each of those strange visions.

Except she looks up above her now, at the only true vision that matters. She looks up at the cloudy sky without a patch of cerulean sky, they're grey clouds, filled with water, and that is when she feels the drops falling on her face. Fat drops that seem to find her mouth that gaps now at the sensation of the feather-light drops of white reach her skin, sizzling.

It was snowing.

"Don't you die on me, Mini. Don't you dare!"

"Is that Minnie?" Her brothers were there as someone carried her to the Big Tent, "MINI! MINI What's wrong with her? Is she-" the question sounds worse coming from her easy-going brothers that played with burning dung and pulled on her braids when she was trying to listen to their overwhelmed mother.

Minisa's Mother's voice was sharp and scared, "Stay at the tent boys, be mindful to Greja while I am away!"

"But Mother-"

"Do as I say!" She sounds like a screech owl, "don't follow!"

Minisa's eyes flickered open at the mention of my brothers. She wanted to prove her strength to them, and that she could withstand anything they could. _But I had no idea what was happening to me._ She thought sullenly. _  
_

Minisa pushed her mind to awaken, and get some control.

Then the most peculiar thing ...began to happen... her heart... started hurting.

She had never experienced chest-hurt before, and it was peculiar to feel it radiate from deep inside her center.

It felt like a match to flame at first, boiling under her skin, in her veins, rolling around in dark red angry waves inside her. The thrumming of some demon's drum that pooled in her chest, in her belly, and then slowly reached out to the very tips of her fingers and toes. No where was safe from the abhorrent outburst of... heat. Warm at first, then hot like rolling in furs until it itched every part of her, then it was overbearingly hot, as being in front of the fire, stepping into the fire... _becoming it._

Minisa could not hold back the whimper, the grunting from her skin burning, and then her Mother said, "Mini?"

Her eyes flashed open to see a world of fire, and her mouth sucked in the cold air as she screamed.


	4. Chaos

**Minisa III  
**

Chaos had erupted, and just as quick as it had occurred, it had been quelled.

The Healer Witch had come upon Minisa screaming like a banshee, and how it had caused a fuss among the building tension between the cavepeople the Weepers' camp.

Light footsteps slapped on the dry tented ground as a little lady the size of a small child, with wrinkled eyes, leathered skin, and a lumpy hat that resembled caked mud made her way in. The little woman at the sight before her gave a loud yelp. Upon reaching the fray the Healer Witch descended on the combative men, slipping through the taller humanoids, and giving a quick knife stab to the man that had a pumping hand on Minisa's Mother's breast.

After a ripple of strange magic came from the Healer Witch, the fight ended.

Now the Weeper was nursing a large gash across his chest to prove it. Minisa had never seen something so amazing in her life, and probably never would again. Her mother had been attacked by the Weeper and some of his men, but Big Sam, his brothers, and the Witch and her own Old Gods followers had stopped the fight from spreading.

The elderly Witch pulled herself off from her back. She had only a scratch down her cheek from where a man had tries to get her, raising her Children of the Forest power. "Now that we have all cooled our blood, and bashed our heads, can we behave like human beings," a great many men had run out when the red lightning had struck the ground, "well the ones left behind, are you all going to behave yourselves, or am I going to have to smoke more of you?" The other men just got on their bellies looking like guilty sinners, or witless worms, funny how they could be the same...

Minisa was no longer on the Weeper's eating table. Her Mother had snuck up on her daughter and dragged her to safety during all the commotion. She was glad she did, for there was a great possibility of her becoming burnt meat over a roast pit the Witch had generated in the Big Tent.

Mother patted Minisa's sweaty forehead, and she wanted to open my eyes to help calm her, but she felt so weak.

She heard the sound of a staff as the Witch made her way to them, and her raspy voice played close to the wildling girl's ear, "I was told a child was sent? What is wrong with her?" The Witch's voice sounded like bark being scraped off the tree. The timbre of it could be described as rich with wisdom and too stubborn to be changed now. "Yes," my mother spoke loudly before the clan leader could interfere, "my daughter is hot with a cold."

The humming of her voice made my skin jump like splinters had been wedged into my fingers, "A fever you say?" Another hand went to my forehead, and my cheek. This one was saggy and clinical as it inspected me.

"How long has she been this way?"

"A few minutes at the most," mother responded.

"Has she shown these hot spells before?"

"No, it came on very quickly."

"How quickly," she questioned, Mother didn't speak, "Woman your child is very well near death how quickly did you bathe the child."

Mother sounded upset about something, "It happened so fast. Practically moments after I bathed her. Do you believe it was the bathing that caused this? Did I do something wrong?"

"We shall see," the Healer Witch touched Minisa all over my body. The patient's' skin was wet, but not from the snow, from all of the condensing sweat. "She is rising in heat by the moment. This is most peculiar. Child can you speak," the Witch opened Minisa's mouth, but her tongue was too numb and hot to do anything. She tapped it shut. Minisa weakly grinded her teeth, and cursed her insubordinate body with _bad words_ , she had learned from her brothers.

"Speak child no one will harm you here," Minisa wanted to but she couldn't, "see she is fighting it off. She seems aware enough to try to respond to what I say."

"She has not eaten for a few days," mother commented.

"It is not hunger that caused this," the little Healer Witch pulled out some clinking objects and began shaking them over my body, "This is something far more serious."

The Patriarch of our tent spoke, "What are you saying witch? That this girl, that has been staying with my family, sleeping with my children, and eating my food, has something worse than a cold," there was silence, "you will leave my house after this is done. I won't have my children fucked with what's she got."

Mother screamed near my ear, "I am preoccupied with my child you savage! Can you have a moment of generosity, and at least not make this about you!"

"Do not anger me, you southern whore!

"Be silent Gugthford son of Gobin," the Weeper commanded his clan man his voice was far more soothing than the Witch's. The Weeper eyed the Witch as he spoke, "the witch speaks the truth. I have seen this before. In my travels to Thenn they spoke of such a man that went into hot spells. Only moments until…" _until what._ **_until what!_** I needed to know what was happening to me.

Gugthford sniffed, "Do you smell that?"

"Just as I presumed," the Healing Witch said darkly, "and I thought I had seen the last."

"No," mother's voice sounded scared, "this cannot be happening."

"Is she smoking the animal skins?" The Weeper's voice escalated, "get her out of here before she burns the tent down!"

"No, no, don't touch her," mother screamed, "my baby Minisa! What have I done?"

"Get her out now!"

Ripped from my mother's arms, Minisa was once again lifted out of the tent and this time was thrown into the snow. her head banged against the ice hard ground, and her Mother's scream filled her senses. She didn't feel any pain. The painful numbness had scorched away all senses of discomfort. No, Minisa felt raw power in her limbs licking its way to the surface.

As if waking from a bad dream, Minisa inhaled deeply, and her eyes opened for the first time in a while.

It was snowing, but she couldn't feel it falling on her face. When they had thrown Minisa out of the Big Tent her body had fallen into the blankets of snow, but the icy ground was sizzling away from her sight. She lifted her head up. Minisa was in the center of the village, people had heard her Mother screaming at her sickly child being thrown, and had come to see what was happening. The wildling girl stood up shaking, and her skinned clothes, as well as the ground below her started weeping and crunching.

It was as if something was starting a fire where Minisa was standing.

Big Sam's redhead towered over the crowd and came to meet with the other clan leader. She bent her head up to see the angry ginger giant-man shout at the Weeper, "Rockfist! What are you doing to the girl?"

The Weeper yelled at Big Sam, "You Cavepeople are fuckin causing too much trouble!"

"We just got here Weeper, what the fucks are you talking about?!"

"Look, she is catching on fire," a man yelled.

The crowd gave startled shrieks and gasps taking steps away from the danger. It took Minisa moments to understand that the danger was in fact herself, and she was in fact, _on fire_. She looked down at her arm, and it was on fire. Minisa whacked at it, but it only increased in vigor. The flames were stretching up her arm all the way to her neck, and didn't stop there. Long tongues of flanges lapped at Minisa's flesh, but it did not burn away her skin; only her clothes that darkened and fell like a second layer of skin were the ones affected by the heat.

Minisa screamed, but I felt no pain, "Help me!"

Both clan leaders yelled at the others to stay away. It was frightening to have so many distrustful eyes on you. _Is this how our prey felt when it was being hunted? Was I to become the hunted now?_

Minisa felt afraid of her people, "HELP ME!"

"I'm coming!" Mother yelled, but was held down by Big Sam, and my two brothers latched onto her arms their eyes as big as caves.

Did anyone care? "HELP! HELP I AM BURNING!"

Minisa's eyes connected with her mother's crying green eyes, and her defeated head bobbing as her russet hair swayed around her face. "Mini, don't move I am coming!"

"No, you're not," her brother Baryon said while tugging on her arm. Little Bane bawled his eyes out besides them. She saw her brothers that had played with her, slept with me, bathed, and she accepted as my kin and blood, stare at me as if their sister was the enemy. As if they had no idea who she was.

As if Minisa was an outsider. Now that was painful.

Her skin vibrated with warmth. Minisa stepped back and her hand contacted a tent. Her fire spread to the tent, and the inhabitants went running out.

"sorry!"

"She burned down my tent," a man yelled.

" ** _Sorry!_** I didn't mean to!" Her voice was lost to the angry calls for me to leave. Even her own clan was telling her to go. To leave the clan? and go where? There was nothing, but the frozen tundra! Minisa was old enough to know that she would never survive!

Her whole body was aflame now, and she was bare as the day she was born. She was reborn in fire, and it did nothing to stop the tide of shouts that commanded that she leave.

Minisa did the only thing she could do. She ran. Minisa made it out of the camp, but she didn't stop there. She reasoned that she could easily harm someone, and they would never accept her now, a fire freak of nature. Minisa ran allowing the heat to swallow her whole. She kept it as a shield burning the snow.

The moving mass of flames disappeared into the frozen unknown as the tears sizzled on Minisa's cheeks. This was a nightmare.

 _What was happening to me? What had I become?_


End file.
